That’s a really good point, I mean it is their money. I mean technically they own a portion of the club. If they don’t meet the repayments, they’ll be huge problems, so yeah, they have a strangle hold over them for sure. The best example of this though is with Barca.
Barca are a club who are in over £1B in debt and have just taken another finance deal for over £1B to revamp their stadium. They still owe £100M in transfer fees to around 20 clubs and another £100M in wages to players. I believe they’ve not actually paid the full amount of money for Coutinho yet, and I’m not even joking. But yet they spent £100M in the last transfer window and complied with FFP!
Barca sold 25% of their television rights for the next 25 years, to a private equity company. They sold 25% of their production company and 49% of Barca TV. They sold their soul a long time ago, but now they’re selling their future and their history. The rumours are, next they’ll sell the ‘Licensing and Merchandising arm’ of the club, reportedly for £175M. Then more television rights, possibly for around £425M. Which means they’ll be able to splash again and comply with the farcical FFP. But our owner isn’t allowed to give us money from his own pocket. It’s beyond a joke.